Chapter 25: Plucking, Plucking, Plucking—Fragment +1

Lian Mu carried the pill back to the main hall. She toyed with it a few times and found the texture quite nice. Without thinking twice, she chewed it up and swallowed it.

As soon as the pill entered her stomach, a rich, warm sensation spread throughout her body. She immediately felt full of energy, as if she had an endless supply of strength.

Lian Mu was delighted. She tried circulating the spiritual energy in her body and found it much smoother than before. That sense of depletion was also completely gone.

As expected of the Feng Clan master’s secret technique—this pill, which incorporated a magical beast’s inner core, was far more effective than those made from ordinary spiritual herbs.

With her spiritual energy replenished, Lian Mu was eager to test her strength. She rummaged through the northern wall’s magical beast bounty area for a long time before finally finding a golden beast bounty.

—

【Bounty Target: Eighth-Stage Golden Beast—Green-Clawed Toad】

【Reward: 40,000 spirit stones】

【Requirement: Green-Clawed Toad’s Spirit Armor】

【Current Claimant: Cultivation Is Just a Money Grab】

—

Lian Mu borrowed a sword from the black-clothed man from before and dashed toward the Transmission Mirror.

The black-clothed man: “…”

Does an Artifact Refiner really need to put on this act? Borrowing a sword every time—does it even help?

Since Eighteen Years Old wasn’t around this time, he was curious to see how an Artifact Refiner would handle a golden beast alone.

“By the way, thanks for lending me your sword,” Lian Mu said before leaving. “What’s your name?”

Such a good temper—she would look for him again next time.

She couldn’t afford a sword for now, not even the most ordinary grade in the black-clothed man’s eyes. She had to save up to forge herself a better one.

Buying a sword from an Artifact Refiner would mean paying their forging fee—far too expensive. But if she did it herself, she only needed to gather the materials.

The black-clothed man, expressionless, guessed her intentions and said, “I’m Number Fifty-Seven.”

“Got it, Fifty-Seven.”

The black-clothed man: “…”

Lian Mu entered the Transmission Mirror, harboring a certain little plan. She couldn’t wait to encounter the golden beast from the bounty.

Sure enough, it was the same forest as last time. Lian Mu suspected that this forest was a magical beast gathering ground—every bounty taken seemed to lead to this place.

She even spotted the large pit that Eighteen Years Old had kicked last time. However, there were no magical beasts nearby anymore—most likely, the area had been occupied by the Five-Tailed Red Scorpion all along.

The Green-Clawed Toad—just from the name, one could tell it lived near water. Following a small stream, Lian Mu finally found a deep pool.

This deep pool was pitch-black, its surface covered by a layer of green duckweed that almost completely concealed the water. When the air was still, not a single ripple could be seen.

Lian Mu walked closer and used her sword to prod a spot at the edge of the pool that wasn’t covered by duckweed. Instead of touching water, she hit something solid.

Those two black lumps… weren’t water. They were eyes!

She took two steps back. Suddenly, the duckweed on the pool’s surface jumped up as a gigantic toad stood up. It turned out that the green covering wasn’t duckweed but the toad’s outer shell.

Lian Mu’s gaze locked onto the bluish-green hue on its back—that was exactly the Golden Beast Spirit Armor she was looking for.

Without hesitation, she drew her sword and charged forward.

High above, two men in black stood overlooking the scene below, amusement in their eyes.

“How do you think she’ll die, Twelve?” said the eleventh black-clad man.

The twelfth black-clad man replied, “This Green-Clawed Toad is in the middle of its metamorphosis… It has already evolved from the eighth tier to the sixth. Stop her! This Golden Beast has surpassed the tier level of a single bounty.”

Eleven stopped him. “What’s the rush? This Golden Beast only evolved after she entered. We can just pretend we didn’t know. If she actually manages to take down the Green-Clawed Toad, we’ll only need to spend forty thousand spirit stones to get a sixth-tier Golden Beast Spirit Armor.”

“This…” Twelve hesitated for a moment. “Alright. But the sword in her hand seems to be from our Star-Plucking Tower. She’s using a ninth-tier sword against a sixth-tier Golden Beast—her chances of winning are slim to none.”

Eleven sneered, “Then let her die at the hands of the Magic beast. The Third Domain isn’t a place where you can come and go as you please. We’re only responsible for collecting the beast materials, nothing else concerns us.”

Neither of them recognized this person called “Cultivation Is Just a Money Grab,” but judging by the fact that she took a bounty while wielding a ninth-tier sword, she was clearly not very bright.

Anyone participating in the Demon Hunt Tournament knew that the hunting grounds weren’t some domesticated farm for chickens and dogs—it was a place where large numbers of Magic beasts gathered, a battlefield between life and death.

This was merely a low-tier Magic beast gathering area, which didn’t mean high-tier Magic beasts wouldn’t appear. Most participants took great care to arm themselves with high-tier spiritual artifacts for protection.

Only this “Cultivation Is Just a Money Grab” had come in empty-handed, bringing just a sword. Reckless and unaware of her own limits—someone who didn’t know better might mistake her for a body cultivator.

But just from her name alone, one could tell she was dirt poor. She even took their Star-Plucking Tower’s sword for free—there was no way she could afford a high-tier spiritual artifact.

Completely oblivious to the people watching her from above, Lian Mu was focused on fighting the Green-Clawed Toad.

She tangled with the Green-Clawed Toad for a quarter of an hour. For some reason, she felt like the toad was constantly changing.

It was as if… it was leveling up and growing stronger?

At the start, Lian Mu had been able to suppress it with ease, but gradually, the spiritual energy fluctuations around it intensified. A vague sense of pressure arose in her heart, making her feel as if she wouldn’t be able to defeat it.

She wasn’t familiar with this Golden Beast, but this feeling of an opponent gradually growing stronger was all too familiar. Murong Yi tormented her with this exact method every day—striking softly one moment and fiercely the next. She had long since grown numb to it.

Lian Mu didn’t show much surprise. Instead, she became even calmer than before. Steadying herself, she carefully scanned the Green-Clawed Toad for its weak point.

Her sword snapped when she struck its belly. Just as she made contact, a patch of spirit armor suddenly grew out of thin air on its abdomen, instantly rendering her sword useless.

Lian Mu was unfazed because her focus wasn’t on that sword at all.

She pulled a small knife from her sleeve, circulating her spiritual energy to reach her optimal state. After consuming a pill mixed with Magic beast inner cores, she no longer felt the previous constraint of spiritual energy loss.

This small knife was something she had borrowed from Xu Xianxing, specifically for cutting Golden Beast Spirit Armor. Xu Xianxing had plenty, so she had borrowed the largest one.

Lian Mu swiftly adjusted her stance and charged at the Green-Clawed Toad once more.

Up in the sky—

“She’s figured it out,” Twelve said. “And she’s not panicking at all. She’s got some nerve.”

Eleven squinted slightly, watching Lian Mu’s every move. “Her sword broke. What is she using to fight? Wait… what’s in her hand?”

Twelve noticed it too. He had some knowledge in this area. “It looks like a Demon Crystal Blade. She’s an Artifact Refiner.”

“An Artifact Refiner?” Eleven raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Are Artifact Refiners this capable of fighting now?”

Twelve’s expression grew serious. “Not just any Artifact Refiner—she’s not ordinary. The Demon Crystal Blade is incredibly rare, made by blending high-tier Golden Beast bones with special metal alloys. A good one can easily pierce a first-tier Golden Beast’s spirit armor. It’s a tool used by Artifact Refiners for handling spirit armor.”

“The one in her hand… is of a grade that ordinary Artifact Refiners could never afford.”

He had only ever seen a small Demon Crystal Blade in the collection of a single-spiritual-root Artifact Refiner, and even that was nowhere near as good as hers.

“She’s bold, using such a valuable weapon to deal with a Magic beast,” Twelve muttered. “Any other Artifact Refiner would lock something like that away in a cabinet, unwilling to use it.”

“But most people wouldn’t even think of using a Demon Crystal Blade to kill a Magic beast.”

“What is she doing?!” Eleven suddenly widened his eyes.

Twelve looked down in confusion and saw that “Cultivation Is Just a Money Grab” was still fighting the Green-Clawed Toad. But her fighting style was bizarre—completely chaotic, yet faintly resembling… techniques commonly used by disciples of immortal sects?

Twelve took a closer look, but it was as if what he had seen earlier was an illusion. She had returned to her original erratic, unstructured style. At first glance, it looked like a street thug brawling.

She moved quickly, yet in a way, also slowly. Her strikes were so fast that she could have ended the fight in one move, yet she deliberately toyed with the Green-Clawed Toad, slashing here and cutting there but never delivering a fatal blow.

The Green-Clawed Toad’s spirit armor was shredded to pieces by her Demon Crystal Blade, scattering onto the ground. She swiftly snatched up the fragments and stuffed them into her Spatial Pouch.

Lian Mu was entirely engrossed in collecting the broken armor, completely absorbed.

Back in the library that day, she had thought about it—if the bounty asked for Golden Beast Spirit Armor, then she could strip the armor off before the beast died.

Because the Star-Plucking Tower only collected beast materials after the creature was completely dead, as long as the beast wasn’t dead yet, she could do whatever she wanted.

Lian Mu felt she was a genius. Overjoyed, she peeled off another large piece of blue-green spirit armor.

The Green-Clawed Toad had just finished its metamorphosis and wasn’t yet stable in its rank. Yet it was now suffering her merciless stripping, rolling around in agony, trying to splash water to knock her away.

Lian Mu agilely dodged, relentless in her plundering, even finding a rhythm—quick, precise, and ruthless, never missing a piece.

The Green-Clawed Toad croaked desperately, flipped over, and shot out its tongue in an attempt to grab her. But the moment its tongue touched the Demon Crystal Blade, it was sliced in two as easily as paper meeting fire.

Lian Mu: “!”

Xu Xianxing’s knife was amazing!

She finished stripping off the spirit armor without hesitation, then stepped onto a nearby tree trunk and leaped straight into the Green-Clawed Toad’s mouth, sliding down into its stomach.

In the next moment, the toad’s belly was split open from the middle. It let out a long croak before collapsing into the pool.

“Congratulations to ‘Cultivation Is Just a Money Grab’ for successfully hunting an eighth-rank Gold Beast. Please return to Zhaixing Tower to claim your reward.”

Lian Mu jumped out from the Green-Clawed Toad’s stomach, covered in foul-smelling filth. The stench was so overwhelming that she nearly gagged. Clutching her spoils tightly, she quickly pressed the mechanism on her bracelet.

Hearing the announcement, Twelve and Eleven descended on their Silver Kite to collect the beast materials.

Twelve watched as “Cultivation Is Just a Money Grab” stepped into the Transmission Mirror, marveling aloud, “A mere Artifact Refiner, yet not only does she own a high-grade Demon Crystal Dagger, she even managed to take down a sixth-rank Gold Beast. Looks like she was deliberately hiding her strength before.”

“She’s still just an Artifact Refiner. Her technique is too sloppy. A proper sword cultivator would have done a better job,” Eleven commented as he dragged the Green-Clawed Toad’s corpse onto their transport.

“She’s such a fool. She could have handled it from the outside, but she just had to jump into the Green-Clawed Toad’s stomach. That beast’s insides are full of filth—she’s going to stink for days… Ah!”

No. 12 turned around. “What now?”

No. 11 pointed at the corpse of the Green-Clawed Toad. Its surface was bare, revealing only tender flesh. “All the spiritual armor is gone.”

No. 12 looked down and, sure enough, not a single piece of spiritual armor remained. His vision darkened instantly. “…”

—